Book Review: Amphibians, by Hofrichter, editor

This is a discussion on Book Review: Amphibians, by Hofrichter, editor within the Book Reviews forums, part of the General Discussion & News from Members category; Dawn asked me if I would re-post my Amazon review of this book, so here it is. I gave it ...

Dawn asked me if I would re-post my Amazon review of this book, so here it is. I gave it an overall rating of 4/5 stars. In retrospect, perhaps I should have been a little more positive about the text. I think there are probably a lot of people who would find it educational. It was just a bit disappointing to me, and I keep being put off the by the misspelled words and awkward translations.

The photos in this book are undoubtedly its strength. It may be worth buying this book just for the pictures. The problems with the text are as follows. First, it is obviously translated. It has been edited for correct English, but some of it still sounds awkward. The word usage often seems strange. I found a few errors, probably introduced by the translation/editing process. Second, it is not clear who it is written for. The vocabulary is probably too advanced for a non-scientist, but the information is nothing new for the specialist. Third, some of the information is too cursory to be of much value. For example, the chapter on diseases is very general; I don't think anyone would find the information here of much value.

This book is worthwhile, but I would not consider it an essential reference work. Buy it for the photos, but don't expect the text to be excellent.

This book was published by two different publishers in the same year, with two different ISBNs and two different titles, but otherwise they are the same book. I don't know why this would happen. The cover of the version I own is below:

Another caudata member wrote a different description of it, so we have both ends of the opinion spectrum:Cheap amphibian books